Some reflections on the mayoral election campaignn

I started this blog and the twitter account (@lplmayorwatch) as a way of bringing together the on-line coverage of the mayoral election process in Liverpool. I was interested for a number of reasons but most pertinently I have a professional interest in social media and how it can (and should) be used in public engagement - I think there a possibility of a renewed civic life from social networking - and in the emerging area of 'social scrutiny' (I'll discuss this term a little later). Other reasons include: my own civic and democratic passions; I'm also a local government enthusiast, however perverse that might seem to some; the historic nature of the mayoral election; the way the election came about; I would like to see more effort to engage people, Liverpool has some turnout problems in my opinion and digital engagement may be one partial solution; and, finally but not by any means least, I take an active interest in politics although I'm not a member of any party...

My Approach
Basically my approach was two fold, on the blog to try and tackle some issues that weren't be tackled elsewhere and on twitter to act as a curator for social networking activity relating to the the mayoral campaign and, where pertinent, intervening in creating unbiased activity. On the blog, I failed (see below). On twitter I think I ran a really good, independent campaign.

Mostly the twitter campaign was to act as a retweeting service for all the candidates, for their messages of support and for some media coverage. I did this fairly and honestly whilst making no editorial judgements about content. I didn't, however, retweet any retweets - that would have been daft. I also attempted to curate other media content.

I also did a live tweeting session from the Epstein Theatre on the hastag #lpoolpeoplesdebate that had over a 1000 unique followers, when there were only 150 people in the theatre. I was only pulled up on one tweet in over 300 tweets that night for giving a partial answer. It was a fast a furious evening. That's my excuses and I'll be sticking to it.

During the 10 weeks of the campaign, including at the Epstein, if I was ever challenged to make a correction or a clarification I always retweeted the request and gave an answer as best I could.

In my day job I'd do a more diligent approach, but this was squeezed from spare hours here and there. On that basis I'm quite happy with my approach on the whole, however...

Mistakes but no regrets
I've made some mistakes along the way that much is for sure. Firstly, over the 10 weeks of the campaign I've come to think that 'Liverpool Mayor Watch' as a title set the wrong tone - it was a bit surveillance-y and I came to wonder how that might seem to some of the candidates, particularly to Joe Anderson who, has the kind of incumbent-by-proxy, gave him-self lots of campaign advantages but also had the difficult position of having to defend his time as council leader. Anyway a name change looms, see below on 'the future'.

Secondly, some of my earlier questions on Twitter may have been a bit too clever for their own good - a personal failing - and so may have seemed like 'bear-traps' to the candidates I was asking them of although I don't know for sure. I didn't really get any traction in my attempts to engage Joe Anderson or Richard Kemp, whom my early attempts at engagement were largely directed at and I wondered  if that was part of the reason. I say part, because ultimately I don't think any of the candidates did much engagement on social networks, but I'll revisit this topic too.

Thirdly, this content for this blog was quite emergent. I set it up in the days after the city Deal was announced and then looked for stories. Mostly they were about Joe Anderson - for a good reason - or Phil Redmond - also for a good reason - but on reflection I don't think it set the right tone. but like I say, it was emergent. Then, I fell into a really busy period at work - I'm a partner in small firm and its feat or famine, so most of my efforts were focussed there and that only left time for my twitter activities so the blog didn't really develop.  If I have known then what I know now, the blog would have been a very different beast.

However, I've no regrets. Social media & politics in the UK is largely a new phenomenon and I'm citizen trying to be engaged in the political process in new ways. 



Political Engagement on Social Networks
I honestly thought that the campaign teams would do more. Then I expect they are not really aware of the reach of Social Networks in Liverpool. I know that a couple of the candidates at least are using the the twitter web interface to run their campaigns, this is at best very amateur - there are some amazing, free social marketing tools out there that could have improved. However, some candidates didn't use social media at all, which is quite archaic. What strikes me about this is there is probably little sympathy for any of the politicians among 'social media' natives and so we didn't see much traction in this platform. Its also probably indicative of Liverpool's low internet penetration rate.
  
During the campaign I used some a number of analytic tools on the web to gauge the dynamic and particularly the reach of all campaigns. I developed a bit of ad hoc methodology, which I wont go into here and largely because of time constraints, but I estimate in the 10 weeks the total reach (the number of unique individual accounts) that viewed  candidates, various hashtags or my account was about 70k - that's really without a great deal of amplification. Some of that reach will be from outside of Liverpool - so a conservative view might be about 50k for Liverpool although those in Liverpool wont all be voters either because of registration or fulfilment. I'm finishing writing this at 6pm on election day and in the last 24 hours there have been 52k unique followers on the #liverpoolvotes hashtag, so I'm comfortable with my ad hoc methodology given the nature of my approach to the campaign.

I'm classifying 'engagement' on social networks as interaction and not broadcasting, so I view this in 3 ways: sharing media such as shares in Facebook or retweeting; replying to people who ask a direct question; and other ways such as: responding to indirect comments about the campaign or the candidates; or using keywords that people are searching on e.g. #LiverpoolMayor or #joeforliverpool or #tony4mayor etc.

Retweeting/sharing was the main form of engagement, but as you might expect this was limited to positive messages. However, even this took a while to happen as some candidates seemed slow to get the process and some still hadn't shared or retweeted by election day.

The most astounding thing was there was very little 'response' to direct activity except some expressed gratitude for positive comments. And as far as I could discover there was definitely no 'corrective' response, where people made assertions about the campaign or the candidates and this was responded to with a clarification. Only Joe Anderson had an 'ask a question' feature on his website. While some people on twitter saids they had asked questions, mainly negative, these were never published or answered. I don't know if this was an oversight or not, but I suspect it was a choice to not respond to negative questions.
 
There were only a handful of responses to negative content, two of them toward me when I summed up, with one week to go, my opinion on each campaign and what type of contention I thought was happening from my perspective. Richard Kemp, the Liberal Democrat candidate, told me I was talking rubbish when I suggested he didn't seem to be running a campaign that could win the election. Adam Heatherington, of UKIP, suggested I was part of widespread media conspiracy to keep his message away from the public - oh how I wish! - and over a few tweets I put him straight on my role, reach and influence.

As far as I could tell there was no response to indirect comments. This is a missed opportunity for all candidates. Its really good opportunity to engage with people who may be wavering in their choice or with people who may not fulfil and fail to vote at all. Its worth thinking about networks that exist around the candidates for this, with the candidate at the centre, with their 1st and 2nd degree reach being visible mainly to existing supporters. Then beyond that we start going to the 'edges' of the network where the linkages or ties are the weakest to the candidate, this is an opportunity to build and grow the support network.

In Social Marketing, one of the key 'vectors' for engagement is social content. This tends to be immediately accessible media  such as video, audio, images, and so on that can easily shared - you may have come across 'viral marketing' that is rapidaly and frequently passed around the internet.  There was very little 'social content' generated throughout the campaign. After an initial period when nothing had been produced I generated some myselfs to test if was worth doing. I created a series of  colourful 'word-clouds' based on the manifestos or election statements of the candidates in the shape of a Liverbird. These went out and had a good spread but I stopped following the reach after about 10 days when it hit about 4k (with very little amplification). Interestingly, Joe Anderson shared his with lots of people commenting on the creativity of Liverpool, but when I pointed out I'd made it he didn't thank me or comment on my creativity. I took that a little personally, and its when I started reflecting on my earlier approach (see above).

The Green's made a couple of social videos that they distributed via their facebook page and twitter initially using the YouTube platform. They were good social product because they took a topical approach to the campaign but sadly, in media-analytical terms rather than political, they didn't do much of a promotion job. I commented on this because the number of views on YouTube was very low - they then switch to an embedded service with no metrics but I don't know if they were related. Liam Fogarty, the independent candidates, took a picture of himself in the drivers seat of one of 5 Taxis that were  advertising his campaign. Joe Anderson shared a couple of photos of him opening a new building in the Eldonian community and a picture with the amazing Giants which was a street theatre spectacle that happened over a weekend late in May. Tony Mulhearn didn't share anything but some of his supporters shared photographs of their political rallies.

All the candidates shared media coverage of themselves, but not of the campaign itself. There was also some independent material, that was produce - about 5 pieces from recollection including a cartoon from one the local blog-zines, Liverpool Confidential. Another blog, 7 Streets, ran a poll for their readership and only the candidates with the two highest polling shared it.

Another key feature of social marketing is 'Calls to Action' in which campaigns/brands invite their supporters todo something: share a tweet; click a link; ask a friend; etc. Its a key tactic for amplifying a message through the networks the campaign is connected to. This did not happen once from recollection. Another tactic that was not deployed was the 'open question' in which a campaign tries to illicit a response from their followers to raise interest in the 2 degree network.

After 10 weeks of this I didn't feel there was very much political engagement through social networks at all. Interestingly, Stuart Wilkes-Heeg, from the Democratic Audit, ran an online survey which yielded a  response from 81 people. It will have been a very biased sample from small number of people who are a) politically engaged already at some level and b) digitally native but offered some indicative insight that the largest groups, 36%, used the internet as their primary source.

Although I am only relying on intuition here, I suspect that the internet may have yielded a rich source of new voters for some candidates and if there had been more work early on I suspect they could have used the internet to support voter registration. However, I do recognise that mostly they focused on door-step campaigning in their target areas, and with a small resources this is entirely understandable. But I do think they missed an opportunity. As a rule-of-thumb perhaps 80%-20% split door-step to internet would be the maximum I would look at on early campaign.


Social Scrutiny
Social scrutiny is another emerging phenomenon in politics. It really comes about because like me there are people in the UK who really want to take a look inside politics and expose its internal workings. For some people this is a malign because they believe that politics is a corrupt and dirty business. For others, like me, its because I want to expose the internal complexities of running a city. In part to show what an amazing job councillors and officials do on the whole, even though bits are very broken and not fit for purpose. In part to cast a light on the internal so that people from the outside may get involved to make a better civic.

Social networks create the potential to be disruptive of existing social relations, because its easy to find people who want to improve services at the same time as defend them. Some elected politicians might not like that but i think overall it will strengthen democracy. And, ultimately, the process of transparency should be an inalienable right. Having a mandate from the electorate is permission to act on the behalf of citizens, being transparent is about keeping the people involved.

A growing number of people are engaged in all kinds of social scrutiny. This includes campaigners using FoI to get answers to questions about the way services are run. It includes 'Armchair Auditors' who are looking at the expenditure to find ways that we might make savings and efficiencies. There are a number of applications for people, citizens and the like to engage in the political process with out having to stand for election or being limited to a once-evey-now-and-again vote. The age of the paternal alderman is past, and the age of social scrutineers has arrived.

There will be mistakes along the way, but because of the way the the concerned citizens use social networking and actively engage with each other the act as an informal learning organisation, and revise their own approach more often. This learning will be invaluable in the coming period of localism and continued downward pressure of finances. Progressive politicians from all side should embrace it. That was a key aspiration for me, to show politicians that the internet and social networks could be a useful place to do better stuff. I think I've demonstrated it to some extent.

The Future
What next for Liverpool Mayor Watch? A name change to start with. As I mentioned above, the 'watcher' status was too antagonistic and wrong for what I'm trying to do. If you have any suggestions for this I'd be delighted to receive them.

The nexts steps are two fold. Firstly, I like help grow an informal network of others in Liverpool who are interested in this approach to find news of looking at local government democracy in this way, but without trying to become an opposition - thats what politicians are for. Its really about trying to find a way of helping the new Mayor and councillors navigate this exciting historical juncture and get it right for 'the residents our wonderful city. I hope the new Mayor of Liverpool will take this genuine offer in the way it is intended and I think he'd be surprised by how many civic minded people there are who would want to get involved if the opportunity. I've invited all the mayor candidates to have a friendly twitter chat in the next couple of weeks, I hope the successful candidate will take me up on that offer so we can start the conversation. I'm also available for private chats about how this could work if anyone wants to take me up on this. 

Signing Off
This is this last post on this blog.  If you would like to get involved please use the contact link and get in touch and lets see what we can do with this? I'll be keeping the twitter account going and seeing what comes of this process, although I'll be changing the name very soon. If you'd like to keep abreast keep following on twitter.

Bye for now.

Garry Haywood
aka (formerly) Liverpool  Mayor Watch

Deal or No Deal?

Liverpool City council have said the 'City Deal' that was on the table was the only deal to go for. Joe Anderson is putting a lot of effort into suggesting this deal to go direct to Mayoral election and bypassing a referendum was in the best interests of the city. He would say that, wouldn't he? But this leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Was it even a deal? What we're the other options?

Joe Anderson says the £130m City Deal could be worth £1billion. As far as I know he hasn't told us how yet. The City Deal was negotiated in private so all that is in public domain is the agreement in the form of a letter from Greg Clarke MP, Minister for Decentralisation and Cities. We don't know what other deals were on the table. For instance, we don't know what the City Deal for Liverpool would have been if the city would have chosen to take the referendum route.

It is worth noting that none of the other major cities that are constructing a City Deal felt that a direct election was in their best interest. Why is it that only Liverpool has chosen to go down the direction election route? Did the government construct the negotiations in such a way that they wanted to deny the people of Liverpool a choice? If so we should be told.

Or was it Liverpool City Council who constructed this arrangement? If the £130m deal was the best, what was the other deal? We can assume it was less, but how much less? £129m? £100m

Is there some conditionality to the City Deal that is not included in the agreement?  It is not clear if the new powers include the ability sign-off on large project or do they, as some are starting suggest, that sign-off will still be in the gift of various secretaries of state? Is this part of the deal?

A second issue that arises is just how much of the money and additional power is actually new?  The £75m in economic development appears to comprise all the money that was already available to the City, and certainly the powers are not new. Take the 'super fast broadband' money, this was already allocated to Liverpool under a deal from the Department for Culture, Media & Sport. A similar set up is true for the for the Housing element of the Mayoral Investment Board, which is simply a 'lease' type transfer of land assets from the Home & Community Agency, who will retain legal ownership of the assets and will continue to be the accountable body.

Two interesting omissions from the Mayor's powers will be education and health. Although the Mayor may have sufficient soft-power to bring people together, the increasing autonomy in the Education sector could mean that that integrating education into the economic development plan may be difficult. It is widely accepted that Liverpool has education attainment problems that contribute to the sluggishness of economic development. The Mayor will have some resources to build new schools, but even so half of these must be academies and therefore autonomous.

Health matters will also be dealt with by the new Health & Wellbeing Board. This will be run by local commissioning groups and representatives from the health sector. Its powers will be outside of the Mayor's remit. Again, the track record poor economic performance in Liverpool is related to health & wellbeing on both sides of the cause and symptom equation. Its within the Mayor's powers to work in partnership, but again this is significant area where the mayor has little influence.

There is also an area where there is potential source of conflict too. Although the Mayor will have economic development powers in Liverpool, it will be shared with the Local Economic Partnership, which is an arrangement that covers 6 boroughs. This is particularly important because some of the £130m is from retained business rates, but the mayor can only keep these if the LEP agrees. Its not clear what happens if the LEP doesn't agree.

There remains a lack of clarity over what the City Deal brings and what the alternatives were. Joe Anderson would do better by explaining how this deal was constructed and what were the alternatives. At the moment his triumphalism over the City Deal is looking a lot like the emperor's new clothes. I hope this is not the talking point for the election.

An interesting problem for Liam Fogarty

Liam Fogarty has an interesting problem. As the figurehead of the 'Mayor For Liverpool' campaign he was a natural candidate. Within hours of Liverpool City Council taking the historic decision to bypass the referendum and have a Mayoral election in May Fogarty announced his intention to stand as an independent.

The Mayor For Liverpool campaign group had a number of high profile supporters. Some of these supporters, including Prof John Ashton, Hilary Burrage and Alex Corina, are well known Labour Party activists. Ashton is seeking to stand as Labour's candidate for the new office of Policing Commissioner while Corina has stood for election as a councillor in the Cressington Ward in recent years. As far as I'm aware it is against Labour Party policy for a member to campaign for another candidate. It can lead to being expelled.

Clearly, supporting the the campaign for a Mayor is not the same as backing the campaign leader in standing for Mayor. We'll have to wait and see if they join Joe Anderson's campaign team. But its an interesting problem for Fogarty. Having to build an election campaign team without some of his previous allies is another disadvantage for him,

Jim'll Fix it for you.

Any candidate for the Mayor will need some cash for the campaign. While the deposit is £500, the maximum allowed expenditure for the campaign is about £22k - its based on £2k base and the about 4p per voter. Its not a lot.If it seems a low figure, you'd be right. David Bartlett over at the Liverpool Post speculates that its deliberately low to give Joe Anderson an advantage over any independents who must spend some of their money on setting up the 'campaign machine' while the established parties have everything in place.

Both the Liberal Democrats and Labour are bankrupt (in the financial sense) but can always find funds for a campaign and their various supporters will stump up enough dosh to manage a reasonable campaign. I imagine that both parties will be looking to deliver strong campaigns. Even though the LibDems are opposed to the Mayor, they are desperate to revive their fortunes in Liverpool.

The Conservative Party are yet to declare if they'll stand a candidate although President Tony Caldiera did recently suggest that he'd like to be Mayor. I've jokingly put elsewhere that the Tories might want to save the deposit, but if they do decide to put up a candidate you can be sure they will be fully supported with funds from Lord Ashcroft.

It has been rumoured that celebrity hairdresser Herbert Howe might run as a Tory candidate but I can't confirm if this is guess work if there's something more to it - his views are the typically social conservative with a large does free enterprise.. Whether he stands for the Conservatives or as an independent he is likely to be OK for funds. It suggested that he is properly minted although his flagship property on Hanover Street still remains empty bar the salon and that must have cost a bomb to build. Maybe it's Herbert's in name only and the deeds are owned by some Irish investors or a clearing house somewhere. He always looks a million dollars so I don't imagine he's going to struggle to meet the maxium.

I don't know about Liam Fogarty, he might struggle to get a decent pot together if he hasn't got a source of patronage or his own funds. Although his 'Mayor for Liverpool' campaign had a few well profiled supporters its not clear that it ever had much financial backing but then its not clear that it ever needed much! But then at £22k its not a huge sum to raise.

Phil Redmond has probably got a stash of his own after selling his stake in MerseyTV to All3TV in a £35m deal. Its rumoured that the late Jimmy Saville, a good friend since the Grange Hill days, left a decent wedge in his will for his mate Phil. So a Redmond campaign is unlikely to be short of a few bob. Maybe Jim has fixed it for Phil and that's why he being very relaxed about declaring!

Is Redmond testing the water or testing someone's resolve?

Phil Redmond penned an interesting article on the Guardian's Comment is Free site this evening. Its interesting that he's using The Guardian when he could use his column in the Post. Its also interesting that he's continuing to test the Mayor's role (see previous post re Job Description) - this time on how he'd address "the ability of the dominant political party to filibuster." And finally its interesting because he almost offers Joe Anderson the job as deputy Mayor!

The latter two points are related of course. Reading between the lines, my interpretation of his Guardian article is he believes he can win the election but he doesn't want to hand-tied by a constant fight with the councillors who will both control the cabinet and the full council. It seems he is looking for that assurance from Anderson that Labour, who must surely retain their sizeable majority after the local elections, will play nicely with the Mayor. He has good reason to worry about this, the relations with the cabinet could very difficult if a collective obdurate mentality sets in. 

On the other hand, he'll be Mayor and away from the Town Hall he will have a great deal of influence. Liam Fogarty, the former BBC man and independent candidate, tweeted earlier that Redmond understates the 'soft' power that the Mayor will have. 

P. Redmond on Liverpool mayor role: bit.ly/xZym4P I think he understates the "soft" power a popular mandate confers on the winner.
— Liam Fogarty (@LiamFog) February 13, 2012

'Soft power' defines he way influencers can can obtain buy-in through co-option and attraction. Its about creating a culture and establishing a value base for the Mayor's office. Fogarty has a point, the Mayor will have a symbolic power that people will want to work with. It just remains to be seen whether the councillors will fall into step with that or play politics. Anyone who witnessed the Mayoral debate will be in no doubt  Liverpool politicians from all sides like to play off of one and other.

Redmond's article referenced the Militant tendency in his open paragraph and then closed with "I'd invite the leader of the largest party to become deputy mayor." I was immediately reminded of the Hatton/Mulhearn combination: the savvy front-man with media presence and the back room boss cutting deals across the council. It kind of felt like he was saying, 'I'll shape the agenda, and my deputy will make it happen.' Anderson will have an important role in shaping the Mayor's duties in the coming weeks, and Redmond has been clear in using his Post column and this article to make demands of the role. Its like the very public salvoes that happen before closed negotiations happen - part agenda setting, part testing the resolve.

His final words in the article were "If I were running for Mayor." If? This horse is in the starting gate.

David Milliband suggests 'open primary' for Labour Mayoral candidates.

David Milliband has suggested Labour candidates for City Mayoral elections should be selected by an 'open primary'. At the moment it seems Liverpool will be the only city to go straight to an election on May 3rd 2012. The remaining 8 cities will hold a referendum first.  If Liverpool Labour chose the 'open primary' route it would be the first place to do so. I'd be surprised if this was the outcome.

An 'open primary' allows registered supporters of a party to take part in the selection of the party's candidate. Milliband suggests that non-members could register as supporters for a small fee of £1 and this would entitle them to participate in the selection process for the candidate. He suggests that it could be a good way for the party to re-engage with electorate.

Labour has not used the primary method before and its only been used once before in British politics. The Tories held an open primary prior to the 2009 general election to select the candidate for Totnes. Dr Sarah Woolaston won the primary, just over 16,000 voters took part, and she went on to win the subsequent election becoming the MP for the Devon constituency. The French Socialist Party recently used the method proposed by Milliband to select their candidate for the forthcoming presidential election. Nearly three million voters took part in selecting François Hollande paying 1 euro each for the privilege. That's a good amount of voter engagement but also a tidy sum for the campaign coffers!

Joe Anderson might feel this is a shot across his bow. The current Leader of the Council occupies a position of strength of within the local party and is expected to be the party's candidate should Labour use a member-only vote. However, if the party uses the primary model it could open the way for another candidate to stand who might be more popular with the potential Labour supporting electorate.

It has been suggested the Liverpool administration chose to avoid having a referendum because the question was set-out in a way that would reflect negatively on the current administration. The referendum ballot question was phrased to make the choice between "This is how the council is run now" or "This would be a change from how the council if run now." If the referendum result was for a Mayor it would be used by Labour's opponents to suggest the electorate didn't support the way the party ran the council had been run. There's certainly a lot on antipathy towards the council, but that's politics folks!

However, Anderson might take some comfort that practicalities are on his side, or at least time is. It might be difficult to arrange and conduct an open primary in the time-frame. The selection of the candidate must happen by April 4th when the formal nomination process closes. Anderson supporters might hope the local party hierarchy drag their feet on this matter. If Labour are to use this method they will need to get a move on.

Phil Redmond might run

As I speculated on Tuesday, Phil Redmond might run for the Mayor of Liverpool. In an article in the Liverpool Echo he has declared an interest. However, he'd like to see the 'job description' first. This is fair enough and is the first sensible thing I've read so far on the Mayor race. He was also on last night's BBC Question Time and Dimbleby asked if he would stand. Redmond replied he "didn't know."

Mr Redmond, who is the former head of Mersey TV and current chair of the National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside,  is no stranger to city politics. He was widely credited as 'the cavalry' by many insiders for his role in the Culture 2008 campaign, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat in aftermath of a series of high profile resignations. More recently he had a big falling out with Joe Anderson and the City Council over the withdrawal from 'Big Society Pilot' that the former Hollyoaks boss was spearheading.

I have wondered if Redmond could stand for the Tories - they're always very accommodating. I don't know if he has any political affiliations to any party but I'm informed that he is well connected to Cameron and other leading members of the government. If there is someone who could detoxify the Tory brand in Liverpool it would him. However, this is pure conjecture on my part, nothing more.